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The Concept

In the beginning levels, I wanted the music to flow together as seamlessly as possible. Each time you change “zone” (go from beach to forest, or forest to tower), a new layer of instrumentation is added. Each layer is meant to alter the feeling to fit the zone, while still maintaining a theme and underlying tone. The Hellther and boss battle music are intentionally independent. I’ll explain this in a bit. Ideally, I would have created my own audio mixer in code, and faded each track in one at time when it was necessary. I was not able to do this due to limits on time and programming experience. I ended up having separate audio files for each layer, but it included all the previous layers as well. I would stop one track and start the other whenever I needed to change song. Fortunately, this was still enough to convey the feelings I wanted.

The Songs

As a warning, these descriptions might become quite “artsy”, “romantic”, even “chimerical“.

When I wrote this beginning piano piece, I literally sat there with my eyes closed until I brought my mind into a state of empathy for what this shipwrecked character would be feeling. Amnesia, smallness, loneliness, desperation. Then, I just started playing. What you hear is the result. It’s very sparse. This is to contribute to the aforementioned mood, and so that the audio wouldn’t sound cluttered when other layers were added. It’s pretty straightforward, with only a brief key change towards the end of the movement. This key change is important though. It lets you know that everything is not safe, and something is definitely wrong here.

When you enter the forest, a small violin and triangle enter the scene. It was inspired by “Gustaberg” and “Ronfaure” from the Final Fantasy XI Soundtrack. A high, suspended violin note persists, and later a second violin harmonizes to give some motion. This and the sparse triangle give a feeling of “lostness” and “barrenness”.

The tower layer has a noticeable change in mood. It gives a royal sound with a rolling snare drum, and a brass melody line. This one is inspired by “The Kingdom Of San D’Oria” from the Final Fantasy XI Soundtrack. The melody starts off with a mid-range french horn and trombone harmonization. Then, it’s joined by a high trumpet harmony, which actually feels more like a melody. Towards the end, a weighty tuba part comes in to give the key change some emphasis. The intensity grows with this track.

This is where the bass kicks in. There is a sudden drop when the contrabass part comes in. The deepness is meant to set off worry and convey “fear”. The notes I chose for it are intentionally dissonant. I found and amplified the tensions that existed within each chord. A steady and cold bass drum beats to bring out the darkness. The audio is rather full at this point, and the tension of the music is growing.

The instant this track starts, everything is suddenly silenced. No more instruments, no more music. All you hear is some awful ringing and a relentless drone in the distance. This one was inspired by Ravenholm from Half-Life 2. The purpose was to give a sudden and extreme change so that this strange area stood out from the rest. The goal was to make something awful and twisted. The place is riddled with serpents and demons and horrifying shadows of yourself that are all trying to kill you.

After the quietness of the Hellther ambiance, I wanted to give a jolt when the player encountered the boss. This comes with a string ensemble playing very dissonant, stabbing, staccato chords. A descending hammer dulcimer line comes in to add some variety in timbre. Then, when the rolling snare comes in, the cello begins to branch off from the main rhythm, playing some beats in between to add to the sense of urgency. At this point, for variety, the dulcimer first plays an ascending line, and then the normal descending line with harmonizing 5ths.

From here, a nylon-string guitar plays some sustaining arpeggios to add to the layer. Now, we add some bass drum hits and cymbal crashes to really amp up the panic. The dulcimer becomes more active by playing bits of a steadily ascending scale. The end of each bit ends on a tense note. By now, the player has begun combat and is realizing the intensity of the battle. This section ends with all instruments hitting and cutting out, and the dulcimer ringing out with the now-familiar descending line.

The next section quiets down a bit for drama. We’ve got the cello laying a foundation and the dulcimer plays a more active line to keep things going. It plays three-note sequences that rise up the scale each measure. The rhythm of the dulcimer and the cello complement each other in such a way that adds to the “unsettling” feeling.

At the end of the bar, we hear the familiar descending dulcimer line, and the string ensemble plays descending chromatic stabs, alternating in octave as it goes down. Then the snare drum returns to pick things back up again. The dulcimer keeps the same rhythm, but continues to climb in the scale, getting more tense as it goes. At the end of this bar, it all climaxes and then releases into the next section.

Here, everything falls and the tension eases. Insert some lush, flowing strings, and some peaceful harp arpeggios. The peace doesn’t last long, as the final chord of this bar re-introduces the tension. Now the dulcimer takes the lead with a somber melody. We have the strings and percussion hitting every other beat, with some offset rhythms at the end of each measure. It all quickly grows in intensity, then we have a big cymbal wash and . . . a small triangle trills out for a measure or two. Then the piece repeats from the very beginning.

This was a piece I wrote last-minute to go over the credits. I wanted it to be peaceful, and leave the player with a calm feeling. It was inspired by the faint blue-glowing crescent moon in the background as the credits roll. I was listening to a lot of George Winston at this time, so he was consequently an inspiration for this as well. This one was not played by hand. I created the notes in my MIDI editor.

The Sounds

Most of the sound effects in Baseborn were not created by me. Nearly all of them came from a great resource: freesound.org. There were some sounds that I created, though.

Frost Attack

First, I found a synth sound that sounded “airy”. Then, I essentially ran a finger over several piano keys. This created the sound! It took a few tries to get it just right, but it was pretty straightforward.

Pickup

The creation process for this one was very similar to the frost attack sound. It just took some extra equalization to get the tone right.

Wisp

This one was just a matter of finding a synth sound, and playing a sustained note. I took a small chunk of the sustained note, and copy/pasted that chunk one after the other. Then I did a crossfade between each one so it all sounded like one piece.